Putting It Together, a Stephen Sondheim musical presentation, Austin Community College, June 24 - July 3

This is Sondheim song season. Not just because 81-year-old master incarnates the tunesmanship of Broadway of the last 50 years, but because his tunes and music so deftly capture the dreams of those sophisticates who have populated his audiences. Yes, his breakthrough was as the lyricist for West Side Story, but as this compendium song performance illustrates, Stephen Sondheim portrayed with wit and acumen the sentimental lives of Americans.

Dr. Jimmy Shepherd of Austin Community College has assembled a bright and attractive ensemble of six talented and confident students to perform with him and an eight-piece orchestra in Putting It Together, two hours of music that pauses only for a ten-minute intermission.

Sondheim cognoscenti will certainly place each of the 31 numbers in the appropriate theatre musical. The rest of us can treat this performance as a trove of unpredictable amusements and delights. The man knows the American heart and the full scale of gradations of love.

[image: Christina Ortiz]

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .